History at All Saints Primary School
‘The more you know about the past, the better prepared you are for the future.’ - Theodore Roosevelt
Aims
The aims of history are:
- We want the children at All Saints to be historians.
- To inspire children’s curiosity about the past and to develop their understanding of key events.
- For children to ask perceptive questions, think critically and evaluate sources.
- For children to develop a sense of identity through learning about the past and we want them to know how history has shaped their own lives.
- To develop an awareness of the past and know where the people and events they study fit within a chronological framework.
- Children are able to identify similarities and differences between ways of life in different periods.
- Children undertake historical enquires; thinking critically, weighing evidence, sifting arguments, and developing perspective and judgement.
- To use parts of stories and other sources to show that they know and understand key features of historical events.
- Children learn to frame historically-valid questions and create their own structured accounts, including written narratives and analyses.
Intent
At All Saints school we want children to be historians. We aim for it to inspire children’s curiosity about the past and to develop their understanding of key events. Our intent is that our teaching of History will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world.
We aim to enable children to ask perceptive questions, think critically and evaluate sources. It is important for children to develop a sense of identity through learning about the past and we want them to know how history has shaped their own lives. This is why we have ensured that children learn about history in our local area.
Implementation
We follow the National Curriculum for the teaching of History and ensure that our units of work provide opportunities for children to deepen their understanding in terms of substantive and disciplinary knowledge.
We have a clear progression document for history that maps the skills taught across all year groups and shows how we build on skills taught in previous years. This means that teachers are clear about which skills to teach in each topic they cover and therefore teach high quality lessons which build on children’s prior knowledge, skills and understanding.
Our progression of skills document outlines the following skills and the progression in each year group:
- Chronological understanding
- Range and depth of historical knowledge
- Historical enquiry
- Historical interpretation
- Continuity and change
- Causes and consequences
- Similarity and difference
- Significance
- Organisation and communication
In our lessons children use our 6 core skills to help them become confident historians with a good knowledge and understanding of History.
All Saints high-quality history education helps pupils to gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts, making and understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history. Key historical threads are imbedded within the planning and teaching of each history unit ensuring children revisit these threads and are able to make connections with previous units studied.
The 6 threads are:
- Movement of people
- Conflicts
- Arts and culture
- Dwellings/lifestyles
- Technological development
- Religion
History in KS1 and KS2
In line with the National Curriculum children in KS1 will learn about:
- Changes within living memory. Where appropriate, these should be used to reveal aspects of change in national life.
- events beyond living memory that are significant nationally or globally [for example, the Great Fire of London, the first aeroplane flight or events commemorated through festivals or anniversaries]
- the lives of significant individuals in the past who have contributed to national and international achievements. Some should be used to compare aspects of life in different periods [for example, Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria, Christopher Columbus and Neil Armstrong, William Caxton and Tim Berners-Lee, Pieter Bruegel the Elder and LS Lowry, Rosa Parks and Emily Davison, Mary Seacole and/or Florence Nightingale and Edith Cavell]
- significant historical events, people and places in their own locality.
In KS2 children will continue to develop a chronologically secure knowledge and understanding of British, local and world history, establishing clear narratives within and across the periods they study.
They will learn about:
- changes in Britain from the Stone Age to the Iron Age
- the Roman Empire and its impact on Britain
- Britain’s settlement by Anglo-Saxons and Scots
- the Viking and Anglo-Saxon struggle for the Kingdom of England to the time of Edward the Confessor
- a local history study
- a study of an aspect or theme in British history that extends pupils’ chronological knowledge beyond 1066
- the achievements of the earliest civilizations – an overview of where and when the first civilizations appeared and a depth study of one of the following: Ancient Sumer; The Indus Valley; Ancient Egypt; The Shang Dynasty of Ancient China
- Ancient Greece – a study of Greek life and achievements and their influence on the western world
- a non-European society that provides contrasts with British history – one study chosen from: early Islamic civilization, including a study of Baghdad c. AD 900; Mayan civilization c. AD 900; Benin (West Africa) c. AD 900-1300.
History in EYFS
In our Early Years history is taught as an integral part of the topic work through child-initiated and adult led activities. The children are given the opportunity to find out about past and present events in their own lives, and those of their families and other people they know. In the Foundation stage history makes a significant contribution to developing a child’s understanding of the world through stories, rhymes and activities such as looking at pictures of famous people in history or discovering the meaning of new and old in relation to their own lives.
